It was in the second decade of the twentieth century, after the Great
Plague had devastated England, that Hermann the Irascible, nicknamed
also the Wise, sat on the British throne. The Mortal Sickness had
swept away the entire Royal Family, unto the third and fourth
generations, and thus it came to pass that Hermann the Fourteenth of
Saxe-Drachsen-Wachtelstein, who had stood thirtieth in the order of
succession, found himself one day ruler of the British dominions within
and beyond the seas. He was one of the unexpected things that happen
in politics, and he happened with great thoroughness. In many ways he
was the most progressive monarch who had sat on an important throne;
before people knew where they were, they were somewhere else. Even his
Ministers, progressive though they were by tradition, found it
difficult to keep pace with his legislative suggestions.
"As a matter of fact," admitted the Prime Minister, "we are hampered by
these votes-for-women creatures; they disturb our meetings throughout
the country, and they try to turn Downing Street into a sort of
political picnic-ground."
"They must be dealt with," said Hermann.
"Dealt with," said the Prime Minister; "exactly, just so; but how?"
"I will draft you a Bill," said the King, sitting down at his
typewriting machine, "enacting that women shall vote at all future
elections. Shall vote, you observe; or, to put it plainer, must.
Voting will remain optional, as before, for male electors; but every
woman between the ages of twenty-one and seventy will be obliged to
vote, not only at elections for Parliament, county councils, district
boards, parish councils, and municipalities, but for coroners, school
inspectors, churchwardens, curators of museums, sanitary authorities,
police-court interpreters, swimming-bath instructors, contractors,
choir-masters, market superintendents, art-school teachers, cathedral
vergers, and other local functionaries whose names I will add as they
occur to me. All these offices will become elective, and failure to
vote at any election falling within her area of residence will involve
the female elector in a penalty of £10. Absence, unsupported by an
adequate medical certificate, will not be accepted as an excuse. Pass
this Bill through the two Houses of Parliament and bring it to me for
signature the day after to-morrow."
From the very outset the Compulsory Female Franchise produced little or
no elation even in circles which had been loudest in demanding the
vote. The bulk of the women of the country had been indifferent or
hostile to the franchise agitation, and the most fanatical Suffragettes
began to wonder what they had found so attractive in the prospect of
putting ballot-papers into a box. In the country districts the task of
carrying out the provisions of the new Act was irksome enough; in the
towns and cities it became an incubus. There seemed no end to the
elections. Laundresses and seamstresses had to hurry away from their
work to vote, often for a candidate whose name they hadn't heard
before, and whom they selected at haphazard; female clerks and
waitresses got up extra early to get their voting done before starting
off to their places of business. Society women found their
arrangements impeded and upset by the continual necessity for attending
the polling stations, and week-end parties and summer holidays became
gradually a masculine luxury. As for Cairo and the Riviera, they were
possible only for genuine invalids or people of enormous wealth, for
the accumulation of £10 fines during a prolonged absence was a
contingency that even ordinarily wealthy folk could hardly afford to
risk.
It was not wonderful that the female disfranchisement agitation became
a formidable movement. The No-Votes-for-Women League numbered its
feminine adherents by the million; its colours, citron and old
Dutch-madder, were flaunted everywhere, and its battle hymn, "We don't
want to Vote," became a popular refrain. As the Government showed no
signs of being impressed by peaceful persuasion, more violent methods
came into vogue. Meetings were disturbed, Ministers were mobbed,
policemen were bitten, and ordinary prison fare rejected, and on the
eve of the anniversary of Trafalgar women bound themselves in tiers up
the entire length of the Nelson column so that its customary floral
decoration had to be abandoned. Still the Government obstinately
adhered to its conviction that women ought to have the vote.
Then, as a last resort, some woman wit hit upon an expedient which it
was strange that no one had thought of before. The Great Weep was
organized. Relays of women, ten thousand at a time, wept continuously
in the public places of the Metropolis. They wept in railway stations,
in tubes and omnibuses, in the National Gallery, at the Army and Navy
Stores, in St. James's Park, at ballad concerts, at Prince's and in the
Burlington Arcade. The hitherto unbroken success of the brilliant
farcical comedy "Henry's Rabbit" was imperilled by the presence of
drearily weeping women in stalls and circle and gallery, and one of the
brightest divorce cases that had been tried for many years was robbed
of much of its sparkle by the lachrymose behaviour of a section of the
audience.
"What are we to do?" asked the Prime Minister, whose cook had wept into
all the breakfast dishes and whose nursemaid had gone out, crying
quietly and miserably, to take the children for a walk in the Park.
"There is a time for everything," said the King; "there is a time to
yield. Pass a measure through the two Houses depriving women of the
right to vote, and bring it to me for the Royal assent the day after
to-morrow."
As the Minister withdrew, Hermann the Irascible, who was also nicknamed
the Wise, gave a profound chuckle.
"There are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with cream,"
he quoted, "but I'm not sure," he added, "that it's not the best way."